It currently holds the number two spot in the North American/European MMO market which is nothing to sneeze at.
From the return on investment lens of EA, it has to be an abject failure because it came no where near the boxes sold or subscriber retention goals they had.

The real failure of the game comes from the fact that the game designers did not keep a unified vision for what they wanted the game to be. The game has great parts, but the overall experience is less than the sum of those parts.

Oh it probably made money and for that is a success but at this point it's obvious that ea only cares about box sales. Warhammer and now SW:TOR have proven that MMO gamers need to just steer clear of anything with an EA tag as their games are not built for longevity.

i lvl my bh and sith to 50 and half way with my the agent, they are fun playing by my self and the flash points are fun, but at 50 i had nothing to do, maxing out my profession seemed pointless, Ilum was boring and some of the quests didnt always work and i spent hours looking for a group to do a daily heroic and i was a tank, the new lfg is good but that should have been in game from the start or atleast a lfg chan, ya people can say WoW was like it when it first started but they should have learned from WoW's mistakes and had these little things fromt he get go. i will come back when its f2p and do all the class stories but i dont think i would sub again.

Yet because the game failed to meet expectations and failed to retain over a million players, is it a failure? How do we define exactly what a failure is? Partly because I can't post this on the official forums without an active subscription, I'm posting it here (equips flame retardant shield) among other locations. The idea behind the video is exploring whether or not SW:TOR should be considered a failure. Personally, I think it has been a pretty big disappointment; but then again, so was EverQuest II yet it retained a sizable playerbase years after release. I believe SW:TOR failed to meet many expectations, but as long as BioWare are still pumping out content updates for a playerbase which remains relatively stable over a long time period, I can't say it's a failure. Obviously, to achieve a relatively stable population like Rift and EQ2, the game has to be doing something right in order to keep those people pleased. Ultimately, I think it's too early to say with 100% certainty either way. I specifically site Warhammer Online as an example of a failed MMO, yet it took that game awhile to reach its horrid state. Even though BioWare are still pumping out content updates, a couple years down the road, SW:TOR could also be sitting in maintenance mode with only a couple active servers.

Anyway, check out the video and let me know why you do or do not consider the game a failure.

It depends on what criteria you set as determining the failure. Did the game make or exceed making the amount of money it was supposed to make through game purchases? Did it manage to retain the subscription number targets in the long-term to meet its financial goals? Did it make more money than it spent to develop the game (ie: Was it profitable to develop the game)? Really, only the producer of the game knows what its goals were and whether or not it met, exceeded or failed to met its goals. If it met or exceeded its bottom-line goals then, I'd say yes it was a success, if it did not then I'd say no.

This makes me also think of Diablo 3 and how people say it was a failure, but it did sell 6 million copies on the first day so I'm guessing that would be considered a success. Now if they planned to retain a certain amount of players and make a certain amount of money on the AH and failed to do so (just theoretically I have no idea what Blizzards goals were) and that 6 million game purchases did not make up the difference then it would be a failure. Once again, no one would know but the internal staff of the company (an possibly advisors and investors they chose to share those goals with).

The game needs to stabilize it's player base first, something that will be hard to see when/if it does with the free to play transition, the numbers we seen so far has shown a steady decline since launch.

In a general sense I'd say it failed though, as in more than 50% of the players left the game and it clearly didn't meet EA's expectations, it might still reach a more moderate success though if the player base settles and EA allows it to operate at that level without cutting it's losses and apply maintenance mode.

I'm a massive Star Wars fan. I enjoyed SWG (in both versions) enough to play it on and off for a long time.

SWTOR I played for my free month and that was it. Felt so clunky is the only way I can describe it.

I agree, the biggest disappointment for me was the terrible clunky combat, you know something is wrong in a game when instant spells can be interrupted. Seemed to be far better when I re-subbed for a month in 1.2, but still not quite where it should be.

well the great point of the game was the leveling story. but maybe they should have tried a business model like GW2 from the start on, '' here's a game, enjoy it and in a while we let you pay a sum of money to get more '' because the end game was OK but not as engaging WoW

It was a huge financial failure, considering what the goals were for the game, as well as creating a huge backlash from its fanbase against Bioware, further ruining the relationship between the consumer and company, while the DA 2, and later on ME 3, controversies were still really fresh in their minds. Those two points were the most significant aspects for Bioware and the game did nothing but add more fuel to an already huge fire. How can it not be considered anything else than a failure?

They said that they need (I assume a constant) "500k subscribers to break even". They no longer have that. Breaking even is never a goal. Also, a moderate return on investment would still be a failure. They spent a lot of time and money developing the game, time and money that could have been spent on another project. Even if they make a modest profit that would still be bad from an investor's point of view. They want large growth, not stagnation.

Originally Posted by necromus

Did it make more money than it spent to develop the game (ie: Was it profitable to develop the game)?

They spent ~$200m developing the game (holy crap!). Currently they have sold ~2.45m in game copies (http://www.vgchartz.com/game/31584/s...-old-republic/). Even if they began with 1.7m (their highest sub count) subs from day one through today (which we know isn't even close to reality) they would have made 9 (months) * 15 ($ / month, max price) * 1,700,000 = 229,500,000. That would cover the development costs by 29.5m, but as we know, the sub number isn't even close to an average of 1.7m over 9 months.

You then have to factor in continued development, maintenance, and support costs. The only thing I don't have a number for is peripherals (shirts, toys, whatever), but I don't think it matters. I don't see how they could have covered their development costs.

Originally Posted by necromus

This makes me also think of Diablo 3 and how people say it was a failure, but it did sell 6 million copies on the first day so I'm guessing that would be considered a success. Now if they planned to retain a certain amount of players and make a certain amount of money on the AH and failed to do so (just theoretically I have no idea what Blizzards goals were) and that 6 million game purchases did not make up the difference then it would be a failure. Once again, no one would know but the internal staff of the company (an possibly advisors and investors they chose to share those goals with).

D3 sold all of those copies for two reasons:

1. It was riding on its name, but unfortunately, none of the original developers were still around.
2. WoW 1 year subs with a free copy of D3.

D3 makes me sad. It's not the game I wanted, not the game I waited for. Oh well.